Bringing Research on Learning to the Earth Sciences: A Workshop Report

This summer, leaders in geoscience education research, education research in related science disciplines, and the cognitive sciences came together with funding from the NSF and the Johnson Foundation to initiate the development of a community engaged in applying learning science to the geosciences. Main topics addressed at the workshop included: articulation of geoscience learning goals; understanding vast and minute spatial and temporal scales; teaching and learning about complex systems; representation and visualization of multidimensional data; interaction of observation, theory, modeling, and experiment in geoscience methodology; ways of knowing; and learning environments. Workshop participants concluded that the geosciences play several key roles in education including developing students? understanding of the nature of science in general and geoscience in particular; providing opportunities to integrate skills and learning from other sciences and mathematics in context; and allowing students to apply scientific understanding to societal or personal decision making. Participants identified several priority research areas of high interest to both learning science and the geosciences: Visualization: how do people look at, interpret and describe geoscience images Representation: how do we understand and represent things abstract, unseen, and beyond everyday human experience Space: how do we effectively teach the spatial reasoning skills fundamental to studying the Earth (e.g. distance, shape) Learning in the field: how do people observe, interpret, and draw conclusions from natural systems Deep time: how do we effectively teach about deep time, rates, and the importance of history in the evolution of the earth Expert-novice relationships: what characterizes geoscience expertise; how do geoscientists learn things and draw conclusions Complex systems: How do we teach and learn about complex systems Models: How do we teach about models and use them to learn about the Earth (creation, use, analysis). Workshop recommendations for future work include: 1) dissemination of existing research on learning to colleagues in the geosciences, and of research opportunities in geoscience classrooms to learning scientists; 2) professional development of current and future teachers and faculty to develop their capacity to observe student learning, and to design and evaluate their teaching practices; and 3) development of collaborations between geoscience and learning scientists to address priority research areas. Full information about the workshop and its results can be found at http://serc.carleton.edu/research_on_learning/workshop02